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Letter from the Editor: Mary Rothschild

Several times in the past year, we’ve used this space to inform readers on the approach we were taking to this news site.

For the most part, the course we set has not changed. Food Safety News is now coming up on its first anniversary on Sept. 14. We do not anticipate much of a course correction, but we are going through an important personnel change.

Mary Rothschild, a former Assistant Metro editor at the Seattle Times, will be joining Food Safety News; and Suzanne Schreck, who’s been our associate publisher in Seattle, is shifting duties to focus more on other Web properties owned by the Marler Clark law firm.

Suzanne is the marketing guru most responsible for first creating Marler Clark’s new media presence with a network of about 30 Web and blog sites. Adding Food Safety News to that lineup as the flagship would not have been possible without her.

The job that Mary is taking over from Suzanne is not an easy one. Our goal of delivering fresh content at 5 a.m. Eastern each day depends on it.

With computers and smart phone applications, it s not just a matter of doing some copy editing and headline writing anymore. Artwork has to be sized for the various platforms, and then there is the whole scheduling business.

Suzanne really is not responsible for making this so complicated, although she is leaving us to do ever more complicated things at the law firm.

In her career, Mary has held down most of the important editing and reporting assignments at both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times. She even did editing stints at the daily newspapers in Tacoma and Bellevue.

The old P-I liked to hire University of Washington graduates and set them to work writing about criminals and politicians until they learned there really wasn’t much difference between the two.

We know Mary is a UW alumnus, so she must fall in there somewhere. She was one of the most familiar bylines at the P-I for 17 years.

In fact, for a dozen years she was a senior editor at the Seattle Times. Mary is going to bring a lot of value to Food Safety News. We want to be mistake-free with appropriate style brought to each day’s work.

Of most importance, we want our scheduled delivery to go off at 5 am Eastern with a single email going out to those of you who have requested it.

EIC Dan, “You’re do’in a helluva job!” F.O. Smith LBFD circa 1975…
With a world population approaching 8 billion and the need to feed those people, the potential for you, M/L and FSN is infinite…
Best, Bob…